The Wedding Banquet is a reimagining of a queer Asian-American story

Is Andrew Ahn’s The Wedding Banquet a remake, an update, or a new film that happens to share the same title as a queer classic? Released in 1993, Ang Lee’s melancholic comedy The Wedding Banquet was ground-breaking at the time for its depiction of gay Asian-Americans, chosen family, and various culture clashes (old and young; East and West; Caucasian and Asian).

The 2025 version, though, tackles similar themes but through a modern lens: it now stars two gay couples, one played by Bowen Yang and Han Gi-chan, the other comprising Lily Gladstone and Kelly Marie Tran. What’s more, they’re a found family at the start of the story, not the end, which means that the screwball conclusion of the 1993 film forms the foundation of Ahn’s take.

“We’ve been calling it a reimagining,” says Ahn, a 39-year-old filmmaker who directed and co-wrote The Wedding Banquet with James Schamus, the screenwriter behind most of Lee’s filmography. “In spirit, the film is very much a part of the original film’s legacy in wanting to tell a story about queer people, about queer family. But it’s important to acknowledge that the queer community has really changed since 1993, and to talk about marriage and family planning in a way that would resonate with a queer audience today.”

So much so that Ahn’s The Wedding Banquet deploys almost an entirely different script. Whereas Lee’s movie involves a fake straight marriage to appease Asian parents, Ahn’s version centres upon a lesbian couple, Lee (Gladstone) and Angela (Tran), wishing to have a kid. After Chris (Yang) rejects a green card-related marriage proposal from Min (Gi-chan), Angela agrees to get hitched to Min if he pays for their IVF treatments. Chris is, of course, furious his partner is marrying someone else – just not furious enough to marry Min himself.

During BFI Flare, I sat down with Yang and Ahn a few hours before the UK premiere of The Wedding Banquet. Yang is known to most audiences as a 34-year-old comedy phenomenon from Saturday Night Live, Wicked, and more. On SNL, Yang danced with Timothée Chalamet and went viral as Moo Deng; on his podcast Las Culturistas, he’s the recipient of Tina Fey’s infamous “authenticity is dangerous and expensive” monologue. But like on Ahn’s 2022 gay romcom Fire Island, Yang proves himself to be a nuanced dramatic actor, one whose career ascension has many predicting that he’ll be the next Kristen Wiig or Will Ferrell.

Below, we spoke to Andrew Ahn and Bowen Yang about updating The Wedding Banquet for queer culture in 2025, the difference between acting for SNL and indie movies, and why comedies are exhausting to make.

Congratulations on making a four-quadrant film – with those four quadrants being Readers, Publicists, Finalists, and Kayteighs. [These are the four types of listeners to Yang’s podcast Las Culturistas.]

Bowen Yang: Oh my gosh, Nick! As my feet dangle off this couch…

The film’s very different from the original. How much of that is because you’ve updated the story for 2025, and how much is because you’re also different artists with your own vision?

Andrew Ahn: With every film, you have to tailor the screenplay to the people making it. I always got a little bit weird when James [Schamus] mentioned, “When Ang [Lee] and I made this…” And I was like, “Oh, God.” But he understood that I’m a different filmmaker, and we’re telling a different story.

Both films depict found families, but in your version they’re friends at the start of the story – they’re not forced into it due to external circumstances.

Andrew Ahn: Chosen family is a carried-over interest from Fire Island. It’s something I value very much in my life.

Bowen, did you audition for Andrew for Fire Island?

Bowen Yang: I didn’t audition for it, no, because our friend Joel Kim Booster wrote it. The names were Joel and Bowen in the script originally. That was very fortuitous.

Andrew Ahn: Bowen was attached to Fire Island before I was. It felt like he was auditioning me the first time we met.

Bowen Yang: No, I wasn’t! We met for coffee, and it was very much like, ‘This is our director. I better impress him.’ [laughs]

Did you write Chris for Bowen?

Andrew Ahn: Did I write Chris for Bowen? I… uh…

Is that a no?

Andrew Ahn: I wanted Bowen, but I didn’t want to assume. If you write for an actor, sometimes you get heartbroken, and Bowen is so busy. I always had him in mind. It wasn’t until we sent the script that I was like, ‘I hope he can do this.’

Bowen Yang: I’ll never be too busy for you.

There’s no universal definition of what something funny is. It’s the most subjective thing to me

Is there an actor called Chris out there, then, who it was intended for?

Andrew Ahn: Chris Evans.

Bowen Yang: Chris Evans! Asian icon.

Andrew Ahn: No, I’m joking, I’m joking.

Andrew, you saw The Wedding Banquet at eight years old, and it was your first time seeing a gay Asian-American on screen. Are you prepared for your version of The Wedding Banquet to do something similar for another eight-year-old?

Andrew Ahn: Maybe! I’m excited to see how it might impact people and our communities. That, I think, is the power of what we do. I hope some little, queer Asian kid watches this, and feels like they can tell their own stories.

I don’t know if that’s an unfair question because I’m not asking Chris Evans how Ghosted is going to shape a young Asian child’s life.

Bowen Yang: I mean, I was impacted by Chris Evans’ work as a young Asian child. Not Another Teen Movie! [laughs]

In the original film, Ang Lee has the cameo where he says, ‘You’re witnessing the result of 5,000 years of sexual repression.’ Was that a line you considered in the new one, or is it not relevant? It’s not like you, Andrew, appear in it, saying, ‘You’re witnessing the result of 5,032 years of sexual repression.’

Andrew Ahn: It’s a cute idea! That cameo in the original film is so funny. It exists in the original film so beautifully, I didn’t want to touch it.

Speaking of which, James Schamus has spoken about how the original film has a sex scene in which one character doesn’t give consent, and, at the time, no one complained, but he’s since learned that young people watching it for the first time are horrified. That scene isn’t in the new film. Andrew, when you wrote the new version with James, did you feel like a younger person guiding him through certain topics? Not that James is a dinosaur.

Andrew Ahn: No, and James is not a dinosaur – he’s very hip to the times [laughs]. My collaboration with James was very process-driven. We had a lot of conversations, and had to talk about every choice, what felt resonant for an audience today, and what felt resonant for me. That was a similar process I had with our cast and Bowen. We had a lot of conversations, whether it was about [Chris’s passion for] birding or the big romcom moment.

Bowen, are there things you had to unlearn from SNL? On a film, you have to be more subtle with your face for close-ups and different camera angles.

Bowen Yang: Absolutely. On SNL, we’re pitching to the rafters. We’re playing for the people on the last row or at home, in a way that has to be big and broad. This film is so good at just toning down so many things. Not in between drama and comedy, but within the comedy, there’s physical stuff, and then there’s really great character-based stuff and situational things. That’s something that on SNL, you do a quick hit of, and then you’re out. That’s the point: it has to be a parcelled moment in comedy. This is something that feels so expansive in comparison. I had to unlearn a lot.

While also being the big romcom lead and not overdoing it.

Bowen Yang: Yeah. Any time a well-trained actor comes to host SNL, they always ask us, ‘What’s my character’s motivation?’ I’m like, ‘You’re just a chicken.’ You have to reduce it to that, which feels like such a big ask for them. But inverting that is something that’s startling for me.

Andrew Ahn: ‘You’re just a chicken.’ [laughs]

Bowen Yang: It’s like, ‘You’re just a plumber in this sketch.’ This is obviously very different.

Andrew Ahn: I think comedy is so hard. I’ve been telling my reps that I’m dying to do a drama because I’m exhausted from trying to be funny! There are so many different ways to make someone laugh. I love what you said about the different types of comedy in the film, because I think you’re really thinking about that a lot, and just trying to craft it. Bowen is so good at all of them, because he has a natural understanding of how to connect with someone, and then to surprise them to make them laugh. It’s both so constructive but also magical.

Bowen Yang: There’s no universal definition of what something funny is. It’s the most subjective thing to me. That’s what makes it challenging. But Andrew hates comedy now [laughs]. Write that down.

It’s a great brag: ‘I’m so tired of being funny.’

Andrew Ahn: No! [laughs]

Bowen Yang: He’s so good at it!

The Wedding Banquet is out in UK cinemas on May 9.